Vote Yes on Prop 1

27102010

As stated in my previous blog posting, that handful of vociferously deluded Road Warriors have begun organizing into PACs and colluding against the relatively innocuous Proposition 1 on this electoral ballot. This is not surprising. But if they are indeed able to successfully prevaricate and manipulate the electorate against it on Nov. 2, in no way would that bode well for any future transportation bond proposition that provides choices other than building more roads. And so, after listing eight common sense reasons to vote “Yes” on Proposition 1, we’ll discover who these road lobbyists are and how they are structured.

7) Because of ‘optimism bias’ toll road bonds are routinely graded as ‘BBB’ while all three major U.S. financial rating agencies have reaffirmed Austin’s ‘AAA’ long-term rating.

8) “TxDOT has supplemented state and federal revenue allocations with private partners and borrowed funds generated by various bond issues (since 2002),” says Susan Combs (Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts). “TxDOT must service this existing debt before spending any funds on new projects.”

In sum, Proposition 1 seeks to make transportation improvements by increasing the efficiency of the existing system right at the heart, which will then begin emanating throughout the whole Central Texas Region. According to TTI, “these treatments are particularly effective in three ways:

1) “They are relatively low cost and high benefit which is efficient from a funding perspective;

2) “They can usually be implemented quickly;

3) “And they can be tailored to individual situations, making them more useful because they are flexible.”

With Proposition 1, the City of Austin is attempting to begin rectifying over 40 years of pro-road tunnel-vision…Vote “Yes.”

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One response

27102010

Katherine(13:05:15) :

Thanks for gathering this information I love it how people against Proposition 1 state they want the money to go to streets in their “barrios” and if it doesn’t happen then vote no. Narrow minded people that only think about how to get to point A to B in their cars.
I am happy to see that Proposition is trying to address multi-modal ways of transportation rather than narrowing it down to only repairing streets. It will be a good way to start a precedent in the future projects down the line. For example will we be able to see a rail coming soon to Austin in the next elections? I do hope so.